Techniques & Tactics's tag archives

Stuck with a story that’s not new? You already know that one way to create timeliness is to find a way to tie it in to a holiday.

Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, but St. Patrick’s Day, Earth Day and Mother’s Day will be here sooner than you know it. So, I wanted to share some lessons learned regarding how to approach holiday messaging.

While powerful and timely, holiday messaging can also be challenging. You’re not only competing for the scarce time and attention of journalists, you’re competing with all the other people pitching whatever’s relevant to the calendar item you’re chasing.

So, take a step back and consider ways to come at that holiday like no one else will. Here are two examples: one building on the holiday, the other (a little like this post) developing content after the fact.

About a month ago at 7:30 a.m., I was standing in line at Starbucks — you all know the drill — when the customer four spots ahead of me struck up a conversation with the counter staff about the difference between Fair Trade and Rainforest Alliance certification. Faced with the prospect of eschewing my morning latte so I could make an 8 a.m. meeting, I did what any rational professional would have done and texted the office that we’d need to start the meeting 15 minutes late.

Now, this wasn’t because of my well-documented caffeine addiction. This was billable work. Playing out right in front of me was an unadulterated case study on how the products and services we all buy are becoming overshadowed by the stuff used to make them.

A good chunk of PR industry revenue falls into a category we call — in a somewhat antiquated manner — business-to-consumer, or B2C. The reality of the supply chain, from raw material to Jane Doe, is that B2C is actually made up of a series of business-to-business, or B2B, relationships. Even at the near-end of the chain, the brands many of us represent sell their wares not directly to consumers, but to big-box grocers and retailers that place a series of B2B requirements on suppliers.

And, like any meme with a kitten in it, those B2B requirements are creeping onto consumers’ radar.

This is a preview of Making B2B and B2C Work Together: The New Integrated PR. Read the full post

Over the past decade, I’ve had the chance to consult with organizations of all sizes regarding their need to measure, and learn from, their public relations campaigns. Fortunately, they’ve all heard PR industry teachings about the importance of accountability, which has made my job easier! But, most are confused as to how to move beyond simply measuring outputs(such as clip counts or impressions) to more meaningfully tying together outputs to business or organizational outcomes (such as leads, sales, donations, and/or survey scores).

Some of this new quest for higher-level measurement results from the now-famous Barcelona Principles, which were established by the International Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), PRSA, the Institute for Public Relations and two other industry associations at the 2010 AMEC European Summit in Barcelona, Spain. Utilizing much of the language and ideas found in PRSA’s The Business Case for Public Relations™, the seven Principles primarily mandate the importance of setting measurable goals and objectives, and moving toward linking outputs to outcomes.

All that is great, but PR pros have been left wondering how to execute these mandates. They have plenty of guidance on objective-setting, but not as much on how best to measure outputs — and then, how best to link them to outcomes.

Fortunately, the founders of the Barcelona Principles didn’t stop there. A special taskforce was deployed to develop what has become the AMEC Valid Metrics Guidelines, a set of practical frameworks that guide PR pros through developing a holistic, meaningful measurement process. I have found the Guidelines to be of enormous help to my clients, so I hope the following brief overview will be helpful to you.

This is a preview of Confused About How to Tie PR Outputs to Organizational Outcomes? Consider the AMEC Framework!. Read the full post

There’s been a lot written about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and its potential impact on key industry players — i.e., pharmaceutical and device companies, clinicians, health plans and patients. But, what about the PR professionals who work alongside these players?

Whether we work in-house or on agency teams, PR professionals know that everything that affects clients affects us too. . . eventually. We can be reactive and wait for the ACA dust to settle or we can proactively help clients navigate the new landscape.

Now, there’s a huge opportunity for us to be proactive and to expand the range of internal and external stakeholders with whom we work.

In the wake of Medicare reform and the ACA, a new mandate has emerged: to help health decision-makers understand the relative outcomes and costs of available treatment options. The goal is now to demonstrate total value as our opinion leaders include health economists, payment authorities and policymakers (in addition to clinicians).

To help clients succeed in this new environment, PR teams need to make five key changes:

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